Grateful memories

‘Home’ is a moveable feast
By Zach Hagadone

Images of Thanksgiving — at least the idealized ones — are of tables loaded with food in cozy, home-feeling places that are filled with home-feeling people soon to be stuffed with all that food.

I’ve been fortunate to have almost all of my Thanksgivings look exactly like that, and I’m acutely aware that not everyone can say the same. But “home” is a moveable feast, especially on Thanksgiving.

When I was a kid in the ’80s or maybe very early ’90s, I recall one instance when my mom decided we’d have Thanksgiving dinner at Connie’s Cafe, in downtown Sandpoint. My brother and I were more than a little skeptical about the idea, but I remember it being pretty good. It certainly reduced the cooking and cleaning time, but didn’t yield many (if any) leftovers.

I also remember Thanksgiving 1998, when extended family members gathered at my now-departed uncle’s house in Northern California to mourn the then-recent death of my grandmother. It was an epic feast — including my introduction to tofurky (not a fan).

During that trip, we also traveled to a place in the woods, spoke some words as a family and scattered Nana’s ashes in a nearby river. We did the same thing in 2022 — at the same time of year and in the same place — for the same beloved uncle with whom we’d spent that Thanksgiving in 1998.

One time I had Thanksgiving in a diner in Ashland, Ore., with my brother and mom. Another time, we had a big family Thanksgiving at Monarch Mountain Coffee, back when it was located next to the Post Office and at the time owned by one of my cousins. That one was especially cool.

Many of those places weren’t “home” for me, but looking back on it, they all were — if not for the place, but the people, and I suppose that’s the point.

A fiery Thanksgiving
By Ben Olson

Thanksgiving has always been a memorable time of year in my life. 

As kids, we would load up in the car and spend the day at our parents’ friends’ home in the mountains, playing in the snow until dinner and feasting with a table filled with loved ones. I have vivid memories of returning home stuffed to the gills, peeling off my snowpants and collapsing in front of our wood stove with a crackling fire soothing me to sleep.

Later, while I was in high school, my mom became interested in making water fountains with pumps that circulated the water continuously. One of these fountains was next to our dinner table and, in preparation for the Christmas season ahead, my mom put some kind of papier-mâché angel inside of it next to a candle motif. As we went around the table and shared what we were thankful for, flames suddenly shot up from the fountain. Upon closer inspection, they were coming directly from the angel’s wings, which had caught on fire from the candle flames. We all shared a hearty laugh as we doused the angel (and everything else within a three foot radius) with our water glasses.

Finally, as an adult, my partner and I attempted to cook our own turkey one year and almost lit the house on fire. I opened the oven and flames shot out, so I grabbed a bowl full of flour I’d used earlier to toss on the flaming bird. Pro tip: Don’t use flour to extinguish flames. It works as well as you’d imagine it would. We managed to finally put out the inferno before burning the house down, and the turkey didn’t taste half bad, either.

It’s interesting that so many of my Thanksgiving memories involve open flames. Perhaps this year I’ll cook with a fire extinguisher close at hand.

The fourth member of the family
By Soncirey Mitchell

For my family, Thanksgiving is the most mellow holiday of the year. My mom and I sleep in, have a light breakfast — usually strawberries and cream — and then spend the day cooking. If we’re feeling especially sacrilegious we’ll listen to Christmas tunes.

All my cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents live on the other side of the Cascades, so rather than risk life and limb driving over Snoqualmie Pass in avalanche season, we’ve always set a small Thanksgiving table at home.

It was a tradition when I was a kid to set four places at the table — one for me, my mom, my dad and Floppy the Dog. Floppy is a stuffed animal older than I am with huge ears and the waist-to-hip ratio of Jessica Rabbit.

As a kid, I carried him with me everywhere, slung over my arm, so that eventually all the fur, stuffing and fabric wore away from his stomach. That just made him floppier.

He would usually wear a red evening gown, or a dress that matched mine, during formal occasions because he didn’t care for gender norms.

Floppy was the guest of honor during all holidays — in part so that I could get double helpings of everything. We would stack pillows on a chair so that he could sit at the Thanksgiving table with his proportional appetizer plate, salad fork, teaspoon and a crystal dessert glass filled with Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider. Naturally, Floppy and I liked the same foods so I would help him finish his dinner.

In the years since I’ve had to re-stuff him, darn the holes in his stomach, repaint his eyes and nose and needle felt his new fur. He now wears an X-Files T-shirt from Petco and sits very happily on my bookshelf.

Floppy no longer visits for dinner, but my doxiepoo Peggy — who looks remarkably like Floppy — took up his place next to me. Unfortunately for me, she only gets boiled turkey gizzards on her plate.